Pygmalion and Three Other Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (49 page)

B. B. No, not Mister. This is your hat, I think
[giving it to him].
Gloves? No, of course: no gloves. Good day to you.
[He edges him out at last; shuts the door on him; and returns to SIR PATRICK as RIDGEON and WALPOLE come back from the recess, WALPOLE crossing the room to the hat-stand, and Ridgeon coming between SIR RALPH and SIR PATRICK].
Poor fellow! Poor young fellow! How well he died! I feel a better man, really.

SIR PATRICK When youre as old as I am, youll know that it matters very little how a man dies. What matters is, how he lives. Every fool that runs his nose against a bullet is a hero nowadays, because he dies for his country. Why dont he live for it to some purpose?

B. B. No, please, Paddy: dont be hard on the poor lad. Not now, not now. After all, was he so bad? He had only two failings: money and women. Well, let us be honest. Tell the truth, Paddy. Dont be hypocritical, Ridgeon. Throw off the mask, Walpole. Are these two matters so well arranged at present that a disregard of the usual arrangements indicates real depravity?

WALPOLE I dont mind his disregarding the usual arrangements. Confound the usual arrangements! To a man of science theyre beneath contempt both as to money and women. What I mind is his disregarding everything except his own pocket and his own fancy. He didnt disregard the usual arrangements when they paid him. Did he give us his pictures for nothing? Do you suppose he’d have hesitated to blackmail me if I’d compromised myself with his wife? Not he.

SIR PATRICK Dont waste your time wrangling over him. A blackguard’s a blackguard; an honest man’s an honest man; and neither of them will ever be at a loss for a religion or a morality to prove that their ways are the right ways. It’s the same with nations, the same with professions, the same all the world over and always will be.

B. B. Ah, well, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Still, d e m o r tuis nil nisi bonum.
^fm
He died extremely well, remarkably well. He has set us an example: let us endeavor to follow it rather than harp on the weaknesses that have perished with him. I think it is Shakespear who says that the good that most men do lives after them: the evil lies interred with their bones. Yes: interred with their bones. Believe me, Paddy, we are all mortal. It is the common lot, Ridgeon. Say what you will, Walpole, Nature’s debt must be paid. If tis not to-day, twill be to-morrow.

WALPOLE
[gently; for
B.
B’s feeling, absurdly expressed as it is, is too sincere and humane to be ridiculed]
Yes, B. B. Death makes people go on like that. I dont know why it should; but it does. By the way, what are we going to do? Ought we to clear out; or had we better wait and see whether Mrs Dubedat will come back?

SIR PATRICK I think we’d better go. We can tell the charwoman what to do.

MRS DUBEDAT
[coming from the inner door wonderfully and beautifully dressed, and radiant, carrying a great piece of purple silk, handsomely embroidered, over her arm] I’m so sorry to have
kept you waiting.

MRS DUBEDAT
[coming to them]
I felt that I must shake hands with his friends once before we part to-day. We have shared together a great privilege and a great happiness. I dont think we can ever think of ourselves as ordinary people again. We have had a wonderful experience; and that gives us a common faith, a common ideal, that nobody else can quite have. Life will always be beautiful to us: death will always be beautiful to us. May we shake hands on that?

SIR PATRICK
[shaking hands]
Remember: all letters had better be left to your solicitor. Let him open everything and settle everything. Thats the law, you know.

MRS DUBEDAT Oh, thank you: I didnt know.
[SIR PATRICK goes].

WALPOLE Good-bye. I blame myself: I should have insisted on operating.
[He goes].

B. B. I will send the proper people: they will know what to do: you shall have no trouble. Good-bye, my dear lady.
[He goes].

RIDGEON Good-bye.
[He offers his hand].

MRS DUBEDAT
[drawing back with gentle majesty]
I said his f r i e n d s, Sir Colenso.
[He bows and goes].

ACT V

JENNIFER Have the catalogues come yet, Mr Danby?

THE SECRETARY Not yet.

JENNIFER What a shame! It’s a quarter past: the private view will begin in less than half an hour.

THE SECRETARY I think I’d better run over to the printers to hurry them up.

JENNIFER Oh, if you would be so good, Mr Danby. I’ll take your place while youre away.

THE SECRETARY If anyone should come before the time dont take any notice. The commissionaire wont let anyone through unless he knows him. We have a few people who like to come before the crowd—people who really buy; and of course we’re glad to see them. Have you seen the notices in Brush and Crayon and in The Easel?

JENNIFER [
indignantly
] Yes: most disgraceful. They write quite patronizingly, as if they were Mr Dubedat’s superiors. After all the cigars and sandwiches they had from us on the press day, and all they drank, I really think it is infamous that they should write like that. I hope you have not sent them tickets for to-day.

THE SECRETARY Oh, they wont come again: theres no lunch to-day. The advance copies of your book have come.
[He indicates the new books].

JENNIFER
[pouncing on a copy, wildly excited]
Give it to me. Oh! excuse me a moment
[she runs away with it through the private door].
The SECRETARY takes
a
mirror from his drawer
and
smartens himself before going out. RIDGEON comes in.

RIDGEON Good morning. May I look round, as usual, before the doors open?

THE SECRETARY Certainly, Sir Colenso. I’m sorry the catalogues have not come: I’m just going to see about them. Heres my own list, if you dont mind.

RIDGEON Thanks. Whats this?
[He takes up one of the new books
]
.

THE SECRETARY Thats just come in. An advance copy of Mrs Dubedat’s Life of her late husband.

RIDGEON
[reading the title]
The Story of a King of Men. By His Wife.
[He looks at the portrait frontis-piece].
Ay: there he is. You knew him here, I suppose.

THE SECRETARY Oh, we knew him. Better than she did, Sir Colenso, in some ways, perhaps.

RIDGEON So did I.
[They look significantly at one another].
I’ll take a look round.

JENNIFER comes back with her book. A look round satisfies her that she is alone. She seats herself at the table and admires the memoir
—
her first printed book
—
to her heart’s content. RIDGEON re-appears, face to the wall, scrutinizing the drawings. After using his glass again, he steps back to get a more distant view of one of the larger pictures. She hastily closes the book at the sound; looks round; recognizes him; and stares, petrified. He takes a further step back which brings him nearer to her.

RIDGEON
[shaking his head as before, ejaculates
] Clever brute!

[
She flushes as though he had struck her. He turns to put the glass down on the desk, and finds himself face to face with her intent gaze
]
.
I beg your pardon. I thought I was alone.

JENNIFER [
controlling herself, and speaking steadily and meaningly
] I am glad we have met, Sir Colenso Ridgeon. I met Dr Blenkinsop yesterday. I congratulate you on a wonderful cure.

RIDGEON [
can find no words: makes an embarrassed gesture of assent after a moment’s silence, and puts down the glass and the SECRETARY’s list on the table].

JENNIFER He looked the picture of health and strength and prosperity.
[She looks for a moment at the walls, contrasting BLENKlNSOP’s fortune with the artist’s fate
]
.

RIDGEON [in low tones, still
embarrassed
] He has been fortunate.

JENNIFER Very fortunate. His life has been spared.

RIDGEON I mean that he has been made a Medical Officer of Health. He cured the Chairman of the Borough Council very successfully.

JENNIFER With your medicines?

RIDGEONNo. I believe it was with a pound of ripe greengages.

JENNIFER
[with deep gravity]
Funny!

RIDGEON Yes. Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

JENNIFER Dr Blenkinsop said one very strange thing to me.

RIDGEONWhat was that?

JENNIFER He said that private practice in medicine ought to be put down by law. When I asked him why, he said that private doctors were ignorant licensed murderers.

RIDGEONThat is what the public doctor always thinks of the private doctor. Well, Blenkinsop ought to know. He was a private doctor long enough himself. Come! you have talked at me long enough. Talk to me. You have something to reproach me with. There is reproach in your face, in your voice: you are full of it. Out with it.

JENNIFER It is too late for reproaches now. When I turned and saw you just now, I wondered how you could come here coolly to look at his pictures. You answered the question. To you, he was only a clever brute.

RIDGEON
[quivering]
Oh, dont. You know I did not know you were here.

JENNIFER
[raising her head a little with a quite gentle impulse of pride]
You think it only mattered because I heard it. As if it could touch me, or touch him! Dont you see that what is really dreadful is that to you living things have no souls.

RIDGEON
[with a sceptical shrug]
The soul is an organ I have not come across in the course of my anatomical work.

JENNIFER You know you would not dare to say such a silly thing as that to anybody but a woman whose mind you despise. If you dissected me you could not find my conscience. Do you think I have got none?

RIDGEON I have met people who had none.

JENNIFER Clever brutes? Do you know, doctor, that some of the dearest and most faithful friends I ever had were only brutes! You would have vivisected them. The dearest and greatest of all my friends had a sort of beauty and affec tionateness that only animals have. I hope you may never feel what I felt when I had to put him into the hands of men who defend the torture of animals because they are only brutes.